Monthly Archives: September 2004

Well, September has come to an end and my future has still not fallen into place. I don’t know anything more about the “RENT” job in San Francisco, which has caused some real trauma in the apartment hunting scene. Since I can’t sign a lease here in LA without knowing about the “RENT” job, I’m kind of stuck. So today I just got a place to stay for the month of October. It’s a share in a 2 bedroom apartment in North Hollywood with a girl named Aimee. She is 25 and in the fashion industry. Interestingly, her most recent roommate, a girl named Nicole, is a 2004 graduate of Notre Dame, but I don’t know here. Highly coincidental, no?
Anyhow, the uncertainty in my life continues, but, hey, I’m the one who chose this crazy industry!
This weekend will be interesting. On Saturday, I am involved with this thing called a 24 hour film festival. Essentially, at noon on Saturday my friend Brock will be given a film title. From then, the group has 24 hours to write a screenplay, shoot it, and edit it into a final project. I’m involved as the guy who is going to shoot the “making of” video. It’s going to be a long Saturday.
The Irish play the Purdue Boilermakers this weekend… Go Irish!

Well, this is my first journal entry from this trip to Los Angeles. I flew down here on Monday, bought my new Mazda3 – which is an awesome car. It’s a 5-speed manual transmission with 6 disc CD changer, moonroof, ABS brakes, side curtain airbags, black cloth seats with blue stitching, electroluminesent dash lighting, auto-dimming rearview mirror with direction and outside temperature indicator, and rear lip spoiler.
After buying the car, I started the apartment hunt immediately. I checked out a few places in Studio City, and found a place that was actually pretty nice. After seeing a few places, I drove over the hill to Hollywood, where I met up with Ben, had dinner and then headed to Ben’s apartment in West Hollywood. It’s a nice place – 2 bed, 2 bath with a nice dining and living area. I’m sleeping on an air matress in the living room, which is actually pretty comfortable. Over the past few days, then, I’ve been looking at various apartments, including studios, 1 bedrooms and shares. I’ve even been considering finding a 2 bedroom place with someone else who is looking for a place but doesn’t have one. In fact, tonight at 6:30 I have a meeting with a guy named Brian that is looking for a place.
BUT… I might not need a place in LA anymore. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Considering how much has changed with me over the past few months, there should be no surprise that I might be changing my plans yet again. How is this possible? Well, I’ve been in touch with Mark Radcliffe over the past few days. He sent me contact information for several producers in the LA area that he thought might be able to help me find some work. Just a few hours after e-mailing one of them, Lata, I got a phone call from her. She told me that she was working on Chris Columbus’s new film, Rent. We talked a little about the project, but mostly spoke about how I should proceed with my career in LA. After I had finished speaking with her, I took her advice and called the Directors Guild of America and got information about their Assistant Director Trainee Program. I then headed to the Westside Rentals office to look at apartment listings. While I was reviewing the listings, I got another call from Lata. She told me that she had just spoken to Mark on the phone and wanted to tell me to hold off on signing a lease for an apartment in Los Angeles because they wanted me to work on the film, Rent; however, the film was going to be shot in San Francisco, so I would need to be up there. But they still aren’t 100% sure if the film will be green lighted by the studio, so we have to wait for word on that.
So… my plans might well be changing again. Essentially, I now have to wait until I hear about the status of Rent before I know if I’ll be paying rent here in LA or not. As I know well from experience earlier this summer, things like this might not work out, but let’s hope for the best.

For all of you avid followers of my journal, I’m sure you will not be surprised to learn that my plans are changing again. I am no longer flying to Denver tomorrow to get my dad’s car. In fact, I am not going to be driving to LA on Monday, either. I am now flying to LA on Monday. Once at the airport, I will be trying to find a way to get from there to the Mazda dealership in Van Nuys where I will be picking up my new Mazda3!
If any of you have visited my Links page, you will probably notice that I have a link to CroissantWorld.com there. I’ve been visiting that site almost religiously, and I have been quite disappointed lately. Not much going on there. The last entry was on August 30! Maybe we should e-mail Adam to tell him to get on it.
The Irish play the Michigan State Spartans at MSU on Saturday. Last week we had a huge win over Michigan, then ranked 7, but now ranked 17. If we can repeat that performance against MSU, we might actually make it into the top 25 again. LET’S GO IRISH!

Well, what a wild and crazy ride these past four months have turned out to be. For those of you wondering what wild and crazy adventure I’ll have next, here’s an update.
Following this most recent London debacle, I have been making plans to return to LA. Now, if you recall, I had an apartment already in LA, but gave it up to purue the London opportunity. It would have been too easy for that apartment or another one in that building to still be available, so now, I have no apartment and I have no car to get myself to LA to do apartment hunting (if you don’t know why I don’t have a car, refer to the “alive and almost well” entry in this journal). So, what does this mean. First – I am flying to Denver this Saturday where I will spend 2-3 hours with my dad before driving his car back to Salt Lake. I will then spend Saturday night and Sunday getting my belongings re-packed and loading a few things into the car. Then on Monday I will drive down to LA, stop by a car dealership in Van Nuys to inspect the car I am thinking of buying, then proceed to drive to West Hollywood where I will be staying with another 2004 ND grad named Ben Slease while I apartment hunt.
Now, there are still a few kinks in my plan. First, what am I going to do when I buy my new car? That means I will have two cars in LA, and only one driver. If I am able to get someone to help me collect the new car, what do I do about the fact that I will need to find a place to park two cars in LA? If I find a good apartment, of course I can park one there, and perhaps the other at the airport. That would be ideal.
Anyhow, wish me luck as I venture out into the abyss called Los Angeles once again!

…but only in the movie theaters, unfortunately. No, my work permit wasn’t turned down, but it also wasn’t approved. In fact, there is STILL no word on the status of my work permit application. Unfortunately, my application has been under consideration for so long now, that the model unit I was going to work for has had to make other arrangements to fill the position I was set for. If the work permit had been approved even just days ago, I’m sure that arrangements could have been made for me to show up just a week or so late to the shoot, but since there is no way to know when a decision would be made on my application, nor is there even a guarantee that the decision would be favorable, it makes sense that they really can’t hold out any longer.
So, what does this mean for me? Essentially, it means that I traveled to Los Angeles, found an apartment, flew to Salt Lake, gave up my apartment along with a check for $400, flew back to Los Angeles, drove back to Salt Lake, crashed my car in Wyoming, and then had to give up my London job because of extended bureaucratic delays. Sure, it sounds bad when I say it like that. But let’s put some positive spin on this: between canceling my Los Angeles plans and now a lot of great things have happened. I got to spend time with my Utah family, I got to go out with my sister on her birthday, I saw some good friends from ND in Denver, got to spend time with my dad, I took a very peaceful trip to Snowbird, I helped my friend Divish move into a new apartment and got to show him some of the “sites” in Utah, and I had a huge faith experience.
In the end, yes I am disappointed that this has happened, but I’m not going to let this little set back ruin my life. In fact, I’m just going to move past it and move on. I’m only 22 years old. I’ll have many more opportunities to do awesome things in the future.